Distinguished toastmaster, fellow members and honored guests,

Good evening, I’m Vera. It’s a pleasure to be in such great company.

Today, I want to share with you the happy memories growing up at my grandparents’ home in the beautiful countryside of Sichuan, China. The house was surrounded by lush green farmland. Time seemed to stand still there.

Every morning, I would wake up to my grandma’s voice, calling my name, “Lin Lin ah…” from the yard, while the dog barks and the cock crows. Her voice will cut through the noise and reach me. Till today, I have wonder how she managed to wake me up every day in the morning chaos.

In the countryside, most people work as farmers, and my family was no exception. We used traditional tools and techniques to work the land. But I am not diligent enough to do it. So what do I normally do on the farm? I take care of a bull. In Mandarin, this is call Fang niu! As you know, bulls are used to plough the land, to flip it over before laying down seeds to grow plants. My responsibility here is to ensure that the bull was well-fed.

One of the main challenges of feeding a bull is that there are some types of grass that is not suitable for it to eat. These types of grass will fill the bulls tummy but it would not really provide it with nutrients. So when I see the bull grazing on the unhealthy junk food grass,I would drag it to some place. This needs plenty of strength since the bull weighs over 500 kg and it likes to eat that kind of tasty grass. On top of that, I have to be careful to ensure it is not mad, in case, it drags me on a bull run.

Sometimes, I will fall asleep while the bull is eating, only to wake up and find it had wandered off. I would have to search for it, high and low, over mountains and fields, or else I cannot go home. There were also times when the bull was picky about its food, so we had to walk a long way to find the tastiest grass to keep it satisfied.

Besides taking care of the bull, I would help my grandparents in the fields. They often work on the fields for a whole day and keep the same posture, half bending down to plant, half squatting down to remove grass and at the same time walk through the field. Their dedication and hard work never failed to impress me. It was a labor-intensive task with patience, and persistence. Perhaps, through it, this is how the perseverance and strong work ethnic, is pass down generation to generations among Chinese.

Around our yard, there were numerous fruit trees, such as loquats, pomelos, and walnuts. During the loquat season in June, we would pick batches of the fruit. While the lower branches were easily accessible, on taller branches, I had to climb up ladders and step on branches to reach the fruits. My grandmother, now 85 years old, would even help me climb the trees. However, loquats couldn’t be stored for long without using preservatives. We had to eat them every day, or else the birds would feast on them.

Watermelons were another fruit we had in abundance, but they were grown in sandy fields instead of black soil. Each field would have around 50 - 100 watermelons. Collecting them meant transporting them back to the house. I often wondered why we had so many watermelons, but during those times, they served as our main source of hydration.In contrast, when I came to Singapore, I only get to eat smaller slices of watermelon sold at the fruit stores.

At night, usually there is no air con in the room. I will turn on the fans to cool down the room. If it was hot inside the room, I would sleep on a grass mat on the top floor. Looking up at the starry sky, with only the sounds of nature around me, there is a sense of peace and serenity.

Thank you for listening to my memories of my grandparents’ home in the Sichuan countryside. I hope you enjoy this story. Thank you!

Clap Clap Clap, thunderous claps….

Hi, everyone, I am Vera. I grew up in Chongqing, a municipality in China, and came to Singapore 3 years ago. Now I am 24 years old. Am I the youngest one here? I got used to being the youngest and the tallest lady in almost every event. Tonight I will give a self-introduction and explain why I am here.

As a typical Chinese born from the “only one child policy”, my family put a lot of effort into cultivating me. Naturally, I became the kind of child who always gives peer pressure on others, from keeping myself in the top 3 since middle school, achieving a chemistry full score on the university entrance examination, to getting postgraduate non-interview eligibility, and now, I am still the youngest data scientist on the whole company. My confidence was extremely strong with the support of those attractive marks.

But something changed when I came to graduate school in Singapore, an English-spoken environment. Before I came here, I prepared for the IELTS test. it is a academic test, right? Naturally, I got 7. Some classmates in the postgraduate class asked me whether I studied English before when realizing I am not able to organize sentences to express my opinions. I would always tell them I got 7. But I still cannot hide the fact that my spoken English is poor, so I pull myself down to where I want to escape.

Have u experienced, every time ur message can only reply Yes, Okay, but cannot find other words? How can I survive if ur listening to a group of local discussion, just like bees are wowowow, or You are struggling for over 2 hrs to write an appropriate email to reply to a short question? Those experiences destroyed my confidence, to the level where I realized I am not able to change it or rebuild it.

I wanted to escape it a lot, back to the time when I was one who others admired, always at the center of groups. Can I escape it? Can I speak Chinese to everyone I meet? How can I re-become that confident one? The method or solution I used before, for any exam, code debugging to project organization, cannot change this situation. It is like it is out of self-control. This is a gap, after close to 1 year of struggle, I finally admit it and confirmed that English is my shortage. It should be improved. Learning a language is a specific path. Now I am still on this path. so the first reason why I am standing here, improve the English.

Once I realized it, further thought is that life cannot be measured by not a countable achievement, from the rank I am holding on to, the number of AI features I developed, to the amount of my stock share. I prefer to think that it is this moment, I can give a speech, and you guys, enjoy this time staying here. I hope you guys enjoy it, life is more important than the result that you guys listened to a speech derived by Vera.

Naturally, I should add something interesting to my life or other people’s time. I chose the one that I dreamed of, public speech. Honestly, being able to give a speech on this stage, in front of you, is not just about being nervous, but also exciting and self-satisfactory, in other words, it is a cool and collected presence in front of an audience. Conversely, I hope it may be able to excite and enliven your guys who are experiencing a similar situation now.

Finally, after staying here for 3 years, I dare to go to improve my shortage – English, pursue a speech time and shift my life faith on numbers. What will happen in the next 3 years? Let’s see it

Thanks, everyone!

In the past month, I’ve achieved very little in terms of tech and coding knowledge. However, I’d like to share some personal realizations about my experiences living in Singapore, working in AI, and navigating life as a single lady.

I graduated with a master’s degree in AI a year ago from a common school without any outstanding performance. I found a job without joining a code test. Although it felt strange and lucky, it was my best option given the limited opportunities available under visa requirements.

Even now, almost 11 months into my job, I feel like I’m just passing time with minimal productivity with unspoken understanding among colleagues. This has led me to question what the future will look like if I don’t prepare for it. Beyond working, I’ve been contemplating what else I’m capable of doing, such as pursuing caligraphy, sports or volunteering. It’s the biggest challenge I face because the life direction is so different from what I’ve experienced in the past.

Growing up in China, where academic tests were emphasized, I was taught to work hard and achieve top scores. Naturlly I got the top three ranking on most of academic tests. When I was in university, people think it is a symbol to be able to find a good job with high pay and no overtime, and have a life what we want. However, thinking of my college classmates who are in China now, it’s evident that life did not come as it supposed to do. They are still facing too much social networks, endless work demand and continue to fight for high expectations from society or themselves.

I was advised to prepare for the future for a long time, but the reality of future is uncertain that we are not able to touch today. Instead of solely focusing on that fairyland, maybe we need to consider what we can do to enhance present lives, and feel secure or self-confident for what we are now. It’s essential to recognize that it’s we that are responsible for our lives, whether it is consciously chosen to be or not. Perhaps part of our anxiety is from not material, but rather existential and spiritual. We are not lacking in opportunities or time, but we don’t always know what to keep or give up.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with a quote from “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”: “You and everyone you know are going to be dead soon. And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give. Very few, in fact. And if you go around giving a fuck about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice—well, then you’re going to get fucked.”